Are there any low mileage men's/women's college teams these days?

Are there teams that run less than 50 mpw? Yes.

Are they good? No.

You wil be fine my school won conference and we aren't to high mileage i'd say anywhere between 45-55 mpw (girls)

The guys come in second at conference. the freshman usually go around 50 and seniors somewhere around 60-65

No guys need to be running 120 and girls need to run 90

Nocturnal running wrote:

No guys need to be running 120 and girls need to run 90

No they don't. Galen rupp only does 110

Jaclyn wrote:

The guys come in second at conference. the freshman usually go around 50 and seniors somewhere around 60-65

What kind of times are talking?

If I stated my school, one may look up XC results and give a less than favorable response. My coach had a low mileage cross training philosophy. He viewed XC as merely training for spring t&f. Coach wasn't going to have sub-48 400m men who were 800m specialists ruin their speed running 120 miles a week.

I used to run faster wrote:

If I stated my school, one may look up XC results and give a less than favorable response. My coach had a low mileage cross training philosophy. He viewed XC as merely training for spring t&f. Coach wasn't going to have sub-48 400m men who were 800m specialists ruin their speed running 120 miles a week.

And yet your coach collected a paycheck for coaching xc every season. He shouldn't have been getting paid for a job he wasn't doing.

Paid for xc not fall training wrote:

I used to run faster wrote:

If I stated my school, one may look up XC results and give a less than favorable response. My coach had a low mileage cross training philosophy. He viewed XC as merely training for spring t&f. Coach wasn't going to have sub-48 400m men who were 800m specialists ruin their speed running 120 miles a week.

And yet your coach collected a paycheck for coaching xc every season. He shouldn't have been getting paid for a job he wasn't doing.

We know for 57.xx 400m men, XC is the big show. Tell us about your 47.xx college 400m teammates who were ruined by high mileage fall xc.

Does running mileage ruin your Speed? I can run sub 30 xc 10k and 48 in the 400 in spring

Of my college top 5 for cross country, 4 topped out at about 70 mpw. 1 ran closer to 55 mpw because he didn't run in high school.

Top 5 guys ended up running

14:19/30:22

3:52/14:25

8:56 (steeple)/14:42

14:45/31:20

14:55/31:08

We were D3. and 2 of the 5 (#4 and #5 on the list) were simply D3 talent - not sure more miles would have made a difference. #2 and #3 on the list were D1 guys who transferred to their home school after run ins with their D1 coaches. Maybe more miles would have made them better. #1 would have been a D1 runner had he run in high school, but he would not have been better in college with more mileage because he had trouble staying healthy on the 40-50 he ran most of his college career.

All trained with a Daniels approach (which, by the way, is less about keeping mileage low and more about maximizing the efficiency of the miles that an athlete is capable of running without materially increasing the likelihood of injury or materially and adversely impacting the athlete's ability to maximize his or her next workout).

Smoove wrote:

#1 would have been a D1 runner had he run in high school, but he would not have been better in college with more mileage because he had trouble staying healthy on the 40-50 he ran most of his college career.

Can you really be sure of this? Seems like a guy who can run low 14 - low 30 on 50 mpw could have run even faster on 70 mpw. If an athlete of his caliber was having trouble staying healthy on 50 mpw then he was likely doing most of his runs too fast. I can't think of a single runner that I personally know that DIDN'T improve after bumping from 50 to 70.

Skepticism wrote:

Does running mileage ruin your Speed? I can run sub 30 xc 10k and 48 in the 400 in spring

Donavan Brazier was concerned about college XC ruining his 400m performancewasn't he? You've given me limited info about your racing/training. I have nothing to verify. You didn't state 48.xx FAT. Can we assume 48.9 on a relay leg for you? Maybe if you weren't logging all those miles, you'd be a sub-48 FAT 400m man possibly? While you're at it with your high mileage philosophy, if high mileage is great for a 48.9 400m relay man like yourself, is it also great for 43.xx FAT 400m men? At what 400m performance level will you agree that high mileage is counter productive? I realize I am walking into the lion's den advocating low mileage even for 800m runners on LetsRun. This is the site of: XC runners, Marathoners and ultra runners.

He had flat feet, had slightly unusual leg bones (not bow legged, but a little bit of curve to them) overpronated and had a disproportionately long stride. And those defects to zero running experience, which means zero strengthening of connective tissue, and you had a recipe of IT band syndrome, which he suffered from every year (along with an occasional bout of bursitis, and some other nagging injuries).

His easy distance pace was probably around 6:40 freshman through junior years (15:10s to 14:50s), and dropped down closer to 6:00 his senior year when he broke through and ran those faster times, and that is fairly well in line with what you would expect of someone running those times.

Yes, if he would have been able to run 70 mpw and stay healthy he probably would have run faster. But to expect a new runner with some physical traits that lend themselves to an increased likelihood of injury to be able to run 70 mpw and stay healthy just wouldn't have been realistic for this runner.

I used to run faster wrote:

Donavan Brazier was concerned about college XC ruining his 400m performancewasn't he? You've given me limited info about your racing/training. I have nothing to verify. You didn't state 48.xx FAT. Can we assume 48.9 on a relay leg for you? Maybe if you weren't logging all those miles, you'd be a sub-48 FAT 400m man possibly? While you're at it with your high mileage philosophy, if high mileage is great for a 48.9 400m relay man like yourself, is it also great for 43.xx FAT 400m men? At what 400m performance level will you agree that high mileage is counter productive? I realize I am walking into the lion's den advocating low mileage even for 800m runners on LetsRun. This is the site of: XC runners, Marathoners and ultra runners.

Obviously I’m not saying high mileage will help you More than normal 400 training. But using the word “ruin” makes it sound like running xc will make a 47 runner into a 52 runner. Counter productive is a good way to put it because anything that you are doing that could be replaced with something more beneficial could be considered counter productive. All I’m arguing is that xc ruining speed is a exaggeration.

No. I stand by what I stated. As many know, sprinters/middle distance runners have a higher risk of injury than distance runners but distance runners have their separate risks of injury. See The American Journal of Sports Medicine. 400/800 men training for cross-country open athletes to an entirely different set of injuries which may ruin them. One changes their psychological focus going from 400/800 to 8000/10000 cross country. That 47 to 52 400m is your example not mine. Give us your real life experience or real life observation. Without an example, real life experience, or observation, I feel like you're debating me just to be clever.

You have a good point here. :)

A 800 m runner doesn`t have to run high mileage to succeed. Just enough mileage to support the fast workouts.

I join the lion`s den with you and say that even XC runners, marathoners and ultra runners doesn`t have to run relatively high mileage, just enough mileage for the goal distance to support the fast workouts.

Real world example:

After 4 years of XC training, my 400 PB has improved from 51 to 48

My HS has a low mileage program, and I think what you're saying about mileage is pretty spot-on.

The team doesn't go past 30-35mpw in-season yet has had a pretty good amount of people running sub-4:30 (There's usually 1 graduating senior per yer). But, in the end, none of them do well in-college. I was talking to a Sub-4:20 graduate, and he seemingly can't go past 50mpw without getting a season-ending injury. One guy in college who managed to run a sub-9 2-Mile was out of the season with a stress fracture the very next day, and his max mileage was 60mpw. They aren't even trying anymore.

The coach always says how he's trying to "save it for college," but every single notable runner that has gone off to run in college ends up broken. High quality, low mileage is a terrible way to train.